I just wanted to comment on here, I had a FMT in october for recurrent cdiff... I felt great after a few days. Like a completely new person.. Unfortunately, I had to stay off my crohns medicine for a few months afterwards and ended up flaring again.. But the cdiff has stayed away. I felt the best i had in a very long time afterwards

FMT pill used to treat C.difficile is very successful, similar pills are currently being studied to be used for Crohn's and U.C. pills will be safer and easier then a fecal transplant, and may even be more effective at repairing a damaged microbiome.

I read a report (I can't find the link ATM) that says it's expected that the microbiome treatment/diagnostic field will grow by about 75% a year over the next decade or so. Over the past couple years there's been about $1 billion venture capital flowing into the field. And that's expected to grow as well. There's a lot more players in the field now than there was a couple years ago. There might be some exciting developments coming along in the next couple of years. Research into treating recurrent CDI seems to be the short term objective, but CD and UC seem to be on the horizon.

I read a report (I can't find the link ATM) that says it's expected that the microbiome treatment/diagnostic field will grow by about 75% a year over the next decade or so. Over the past couple years there's been about $1 billion venture capital flowing into the field. And that's expected to grow as well. There's a lot more players in the field now than there was a couple years ago. There might be some exciting developments coming along in the next couple of years. Research into treating recurrent CDI seems to be the short term objective, but CD and UC seem to be on the horizon.

C.diff may have been a priority because people more frequently die from it. Much of the knowledge about c. diff will further support the concept of Bacteriotherapy for Crohn's. Its hard to understand which companies products will survive, they seem to be all treating the same diseases though, kind of a wild west of sorts, with different strategies. Some products aren't even using bacteria but metabolites of bacteria and I'm absolutely not interested in any of that knowing what I know about the disease and the probabability of curing it by restoring the microbiome permanately. I almost feel like investing in these companies myself!!

__________________Learn How Fecal transplants restore good bacteria that regulate inflammation to induce remission and how it has potential to be a cure for IBD in the future. Follow the link below.http://www.crohnsforum.com/showthread.php?t=52400

SER-301 could be for Crohn's disease, there is a chart in this link which shows how far along the drug is in development, its going to be at least a few years it seems for crohn's disease, but there are other companies which may be further along for IBD.http://www.serestherapeutics.com/pipeline/products

We just need to wait until big pharma can make enough from this. then we will all be fine, so long as we keep taking their weakened down form in the pill. The magical cure one wouldn't bring them enough me thinks. But i'm still hopeful and just biding my time.

We just need to wait until big pharma can make enough from this. then we will all be fine, so long as we keep taking their weakened down form in the pill. The magical cure one wouldn't bring them enough me thinks. But i'm still hopeful and just biding my time.

Since know one has tried this method before(treating disease with live/dormant probiotic bacteria), know one knows for sure whether restoring the microbiome with bacteria will cure IBD, the current research strongly suggests this is what could happen but these companies will have to consider it an unexpected side effect of the medication. I'm sure the people who are making these pills are generally aware of this possibility, but to say something is a cure needs to have very good evidence to support that claim and we just aren't there yet. We have maybe 7 cases of IBD that seems to be cured, that's very small number but some good evidence to suggest it could happen.

It has been 6 months since my 10-day FMT treatment ended and I am in good health, despite having significantly reduced my medication. I was at a crossroads with my UC: to impede my immune system with expensive drugs that have serious side-effects, or battle what was causing my immune system to react. I obviously chose the latter. So far, so good!
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It has been 13 months since my 10-day FMT treatment ended. I have been putting-off this 12 month report since it's not good news. Unfortunately, I'm back to symptoms similar to before my FMT. The quoted post will give you the background on the protocol I followed just over a year ago, and here I will report what has happened since. Right now I am under control, but I'm taking the maximum dose (4.2g) mesalamine, and also using the mesalamine suspension nightly.

I had maintained hope that the FMT would have caused my gut microbiome to settle in a place where UC symptoms would be gone, but I decided in November that if the microbiome had shifted, that was not going to help me to live with UC, long-term. In September, I began seeing small red streaks, but just once or twice a month. Otherwise, I felt fine. But in November, I knew that the old inflammation had returned. That flare was of short duration, but I finally had to admit that the FMT was only a temporary fix for me.

This is paragraph isn't about FMT, but instead about my experiment with gluten. Gluten testing (Cyrex) indicated I had sensitivity to 3 of the 24 things tested (regular doc's test had 3 things, not sensitive to those). Anyway, in December I decided to hit gluten hard (daily bread, lol!), as opposed to my almost gluten-free diet. "Almost" means I would drink beer and not worry about traces of gluten or even sauces thickened with flour, but no bread, crackers, etc. So after eating bread or crackers every day for a few weeks, I had inflammation again, to the point of introducing a low residue diet. It was then that I decided to go strict gluten-free. No sign of blood since November. As I said earlier, I'm stable now with the top and bottom mesalamine. I'm going to hit the gluten again (when I get the courage), and see if it, again, is aligned with inflammation symptoms. But that's a story for another day.

So looking over my diary for the last 18 months, it starts with 4 months with frequent blood and mucus, then a relatively calm spot before the FMT, then 10 months of calm after the FMT. It wasn't perfect digestive health during that time, but it was a pretty long span with nothing to report. That span could have been at least partially due to my being more careful with my diet (very little processed carbohydrate and more raw plant material). The last few months I've had a few minor short flares. That's enough to convince me that if the 10-day FMT changed my gut microbiome, then that's not enough. Or maybe my original gut microbiome re-asserted itself. I had sent a pre-FMT sample to the American Gut Project, but they apparently lost it, or something. I'd really like to do a compare between now and then to see if it changed, or is the same as pre-FMT. But I don't think I'm going to get anywhere with that. So if symptoms persist even through maximum doses of mesalamine, I might have to be done with the FMT route, give-in, and go with anti-inflammatory biologics.

7vNH, what can I say, it's an experimental procedure that is not perfected yet and one you should not expect reliable results with. Also, a low residue diet is low in fiber, I thought you were aware this old advice is no longer good and the high fiber foods improve IBD. This knowledge is crucial to even performing a successful FMT. If it is true you had 10 months of calm after fmt then it sounds like it was partially successful, and that's a good thing. After an FMt you really should adopt a high fiber, low meat dairy egg diet for life since we know how the gut bacteria rely on this for nutrition. By all means though, control your disease with drugs but in no way does this experiment you did conclusively tell us about the potential of restoring the microbiome in IBD, but we are glad to hear about your experiences. Maybe in the future you can try it again but of course, try to improve the procedure to get better results, I think you got some decent results and you should feel good about that, at least you got something out of the experiment.

Thanks WB, I might try FMT again. Didn't mean to imply that FMT didn't have potential, just that in my case, the benefits didn't last all that long. Glad to have seen some benefits, though. And I think I did the post-FMT diet correctly...I was eating very little processed carbohydrate and more raw plant material. The only time I went low residue was for a few days to give myself a rest during and after a flare. If I do get the FMT treatments again, I'll have uBiome tests before and after.

This paywalled FMT study in children may shed some evidence on whether dysbiosis is a cause or result of IBD.

"FMT gives sustained C. difficile eradication in children with and without IBD. FMT-restored diversity is sustained in children without IBD. In those with IBD, bacterial diversity returns to pre-FMT baseline by 6 months, suggesting IBD host-related mechanisms modify faecal microbiome diversity."

These study results could mean alot of things, "IBD host-related mechanisms modify faecal microbiome diversity" is just one possible meaning. We have known for sometime IBD requires multiple FMT's to have an effect and c. difficile patients often are cured with only 1 FMT, it would be nice to know more about how they measured diversity in this study and we also know that different donors have varying quality of stool health. My question is to what degree of diversity was momentarily restored in these patients? Maybe this means there is an Intracellular pathogen that take's much more time to eliminate then c. difficile, maybe this is something that could be considered an "IBD host related mechanism". Don't forget we have official reports of FMT curing IBD as well so there is lots of evidence which "suggests" many possibilities.

Hi Wild Bill,
"IBD requires multiple FMT's to have an effect" Do you have a reference for how many FMT's are most effective? Do they need to be done on consecutive days or could they be done say once a week for a given number?

Hi Wild Bill,
"IBD requires multiple FMT's to have an effect" Do you have a reference for how many FMT's are most effective? Do they need to be done on consecutive days or could they be done say once a week for a given number?

jayann

Read the first post of this thread, some early experiments it took 30-60 FMT enemas in crohn's patients to get remission, also some cases using single FMT via nasogastric tube achieved long remissions without drugs which some consider to be a cured since they have been confirmed to be free of crohn's from follow up colonoscopy 13 years later.

Valid question, but read through the entire thread to understand the issues, otherwise I'm Just going to have to keep repeating the same thing over and over again, I don't want a 100 page thread with no real content.

from the previous article in the conclusion: '' More than 25% of patients with IBD have a disease flare following FMT.''
Scary and unfortunate...

Again it all depends on the health of the donor, 25% is still pretty low for any adverse event. This is why a FMT pill with only the good bacteria will be superior, using whole stool can potentially contain pathogenic bacteria as well as the good bacteria we need to restore the microbiome, while a pill could contain only the good.

from the previous article in the conclusion: '' More than 25% of patients with IBD have a disease flare following FMT.''
Scary and unfortunate...

but how soon we forget the great things we already know!! 76% of patients achieved remission within one month following single oral FMT for refractory crohn's disease, these may be the most dramatic turnarounds ever observed in science. The study you commented on was for colonoscopic FMT, please note again I have been promoting the idea of oral FMT as more promising for quite a few years now.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25168749

News from the University of Connecticut whom are also trying to create a Fecal transplant pill.

“You have in your gut this tremendous fermenter,” says microbiologist George Weinstock, Evnin family chair and director of microbial genetics at the Jackson Laboratory. “Full of species as diverse as a tropical rainforest.” And, much like a tropical rainforest, many of these organisms are obscure, unknown to science because their native habitat is hard to explore and the organisms hard to breed in a lab. Weinstock and fellow microbiome researcher Julia Oh have developed bioreactors at the Jackson Laboratory in Farmington that can grow these fragile organisms and reproduce entire artificial microbiotic communities.

They’ve been happy to partner with UConn Health gastroenterologist Dr. Tom Devers and nurse Lynn Baccaro. Devers and Baccaro have been treating patients with life-threatening gut infections since 2012 using fecal transplants. They take the bacteria-rich intestinal contents (otherwise known as poop) from a healthy person and put it in the colon of someone who’s sick with C. difficile, a terrible bacteria that ravages the gut. And 95 percent of the time, the person is cured within days.

Devers and Baccaro also want to know why their patients get healthy. What is it about the microbiome population of a healthy person that so quickly rescues the gut of someone suffering from C. difficile? And could they possibly make an extract of pure bacterial strains that a patient could swallow, instead of enduring a fecal transplant?

Weinstock and Oh think the answer to that last question is yes. They’ve developed a collection of four bacteria types that, when swallowed by a mouse with C. difficile, cure the mouse. Will it work in humans? Baccaro and Devers would like to do a study to find out."

If they don't want to make a Crohn's FMT pill we are gonna have to surreptitiously find a way to get all of us on this forum to get infected with C-Diff.

HAHA! my thoughts exactly. IBD patients are next in line though, I assure you. Surprisingly this may be kind of a new benefit of getting c. diffcile when you also have IBD and suddenly one of the most deadly diseases... is in high demand! Remember though, the dosage that clears c diff, may not correct IBD, it could take a week treatment rather then a day, we just have to have the experimental data and we are waiting on that.